


Connect the Dots

by GrayJay



Category: Daredevil (Comics), Daredevil (TV), X-Men (Comicverse), X-Men (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-06
Updated: 2015-07-06
Packaged: 2018-04-07 22:14:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4279881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>“So,” Matt says, after they’ve ordered. “There’s a story there, right?”</em>
</p><hr/><p>Scott recruits a teacher.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Connect the Dots

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1742.html?thread=3526094#cmt3526094

“Oh, my god,” says the waitress, before they’ve even had a chance to order drinks. She’s the same one who waited on him last time, and Matt knows he should remember her name. “Mr. Murdock, I am _so sorry_. It was in the reservation and everything.” She grabs the menus off the table. “I will be _right back_ , okay? Again, I am so sorry. I don’t know what she was thinking. Someone will be by with water, and give me, like, two ticks! Sorry!” She disappears into the kitchen.

“What was that?” Scott asks, as the busboy pours the water.

“Wrong menu,” Matt tells him. He’s a regular, but the hostess is new, and it’s not like the braille menus see much use. “No idea why they took yours.”

The waitress sprints back up, menus in her hand. “Again, guys, I am so sorry. Here you go--I’ll just leave these in the middle. Drink list is at the back!”

She disappears again.

Across the table, Scott bursts out laughing. Matt reaches for the menus, and feels two sets of raised bumps. “Oh, _hell_. I am so sorry. Your glasses must have--are they tinted? She must have assumed--” He’s about ready to sink through the floor.

“They’re red,” says Scott, still laughing.

It’s Matt’s turn to laugh. “Of _course_ they are. Oh, God, we must look like some kind of--factory-second Bobbsey Twins.”

“Oh!” Scott sounds nonplussed. “Yours are--I can’t really see color. Is there a reason? Or--” he trails off. “Sorry. That was invasive. Sorry.”

“No,” says Matt, “It’s fine. Foggy’s idea, back in college--they all look the same to me.” It’s true enough, even if it’s not the whole truth: that an intrinsically visual affectation feels a little like spitting in the face of blindness, and there are days when Matt really, _really_ needs that.

Scott laughs, a little nervously, like he’s not sure he’s allowed.

“Anyway, sorry,” Matt tells him. “Just a sec, I’ll flag her down, and--”

“It’s fine,” Scott cuts him off. “I can manage.” He takes a menu, and runs his fingers, haltingly, across a line. “It’ll be simpler than having to explain.”

Matt raises an eyebrow. “It’s not really the kind of thing you can pick up on the fly.”

“I know,” says Scott. He keeps running his fingers over the menu, and after a moment, Matt realizes that he’s actually _reading_ it.

“So,” Matt says, after they’ve ordered. “There’s a story there, right?” He doesn’t know much about any of the X-Men, but their leader takes _standoffish_ to a whole new level. 

He can hear Scott fiddling with his straw. Finally, Scott says, “Being able to function without sight isn’t really a negotiable skill. For me.”

“What do people tend to assume?” Matt asks. “Do you get a lot of braille menus?” His concept of Scott’s powers is limited to _force_ : massive, explosive displacement; a strange crackling whir that hovers at the edge of the standard audible range; a slight whiff of ozone. Even now, he can hear the subtle shimmer of energy behind the glasses. According to Danny, they’re a hell of a thing to see in action. He’s never considered what they might mean outside of fights.

Scott laughs. “No, that’s a new one. Good days, it’s usually ‘asshole wearing sunglasses indoors.’ Otherwise--” he shrugs. “Depends on what people are looking for. Where I am, who I’m with.” He reaches up to check his glasses again--he does it every few minutes, like a nervous tic. “The energy sink takes care of most of the glow, but there’s still a little, if it’s dark enough.”

“Is it difficult?” Matt asks. “Reigning all of that in?” For him, the white cane and glasses are a tightrope, a precise and ongoing negotiation of what he can and can’t do, of paying just enough attention to know when to play clumsy. It’s exhausting, frustrating.

“Not exactly. It’s--” Scott stops, goes back to spinning his straw.

“It’s what?” asks Matt.

“I don’t know,” says Scott. “Look, what you’re asking is--it’s not just personal. It’s political. Like--cochlear implants, I don’t know. Mutations. _Gifts._ They’re not--” He pauses, sighs. “Anyway. We’re not here to talk about me.”

Matt sips his water. “Look, I told you when you e-mailed--I’m not a teacher. And law isn’t exactly standard primary curriculum.”

“It’s not--” Scott starts, then stops, and tries again. “The thing is, for a long time the Institute and the X-Men were--they were basically the same thing. And I don’t--we’ve worked hard to make that less of a given. To make sure it’s a school, not some kind of--of feeder program. Which means we have more students mainstreaming. Going to regular colleges, things like that.”

Matt nods.

“And they’re not--we try to teach them control, to manage their powers, within a reasonable margin. But that’s not always feasible, and it’s not always enough. How dangerous a mutation is doesn’t always correlate to whether there’s an off-switch.” Scott’s fingers go to his glasses again-- _less a tic than a tell, then,_ Matt thinks. “I want them to know their rights and responsibilities. When my precog with pragmatic language impairment walks into a disability services office, I want her armed with the understanding that what she’s asking for isn’t a _favor_.”

Matt remembers college, the incandescent frustration and humiliation of negotiating accommodations, the tools he wishes he’d had. “I get that. But I’m a defense attorney, Scott. You need someone who specializes in disability law.”

Scott shakes his head. “I need someone we can trust. Someone the students will--qualifications are one thing, but a lot of these kids, they’ve been failed badly by the systems people claimed were in place to protect them.” From the tone of his voice, and the way his fingers flit to his glasses again, Matt’s pretty sure Scott’s speaking from experience. “I want them to have the perspective of someone who’s been in--a comparably vulnerable position. Who can speak to extrahuman abilities and liabilities, as well.”

It’s a hell of a pitch--Matt’s starting to get why people follow this guy into fights--but-- “Why do you want them to trust a system you don’t?” Matt asks.

“Why practice law?” Scott asks. “Why not just crack heads?” 

“Point,” Matt concedes.

Scott sighs. “It’s not about whether I trust the system. Our kids are still going to have to navigate it, and a lot of the time, there’s not going to be anyone else to advocate for them. I want them to have access to things that--” He breaks off.

“That you didn’t.” Matt finishes. It’s a calculated risk.

“Sure,” says Scott. “I mean, look, when I was their age, the big debate was whether mutants legally qualified as people. Whether the most basic human rights extended to us. And these kids--I _never_ want them to question that.”

Matt nods, slowly. He’s thinking about how it took two years of law school, of arguing in front of mock juries, to learn to ask for things without apologizing; how painfully difficult it still is, every time. How he’s sitting across from a man who grew up wondering if he was _human_ , who would still rather stumble through a braille menu than draw attention to someone else’s mistake; and maybe it’s a little fucked up how much sense that makes to Matt.

When Scott talks about the kids, the tight, clipped cadence bleeds out, replaced by something raw and earnest. He sounds--hell, he sounds _scared_. “I can’t do a full course,” Matt thinks aloud, “But maybe a short seminar?”

He can _hear_ the smile. “I’ll send you our calendar.”

While they’re waiting on coffee, Matt finally asks, “So, seriously--you learned braille _just in case_?”

“I never said that,” says Scott. His voice and posture are guarded again, but maybe a little less than before.

Matt waits.

“I was in an accident, as a kid,” Scott finally tells him. “Head injury--I lost my sight for about a year, and then again, later, when my powers manifested.” It explains a lot, in retrospect, more than the braille--how easy it is to navigate with Scott, the specific details he cues in on that Matt had chalked up to him being the kind of fighter whose tactical filter never really turns off. “Without glasses or a visor, my options are basically _blind_ and _wrecking ball_.”

Matt thinks about Scott’s comment from earlier, about how destructive potential wasn’t always proportional to control; the compulsive way he keeps checking his glasses. “No off switch?” 

“No off switch,” confirms Scott. “Well. Eyelids.”

“Manifestation must’ve been rough,” Matt says. He knows it usually happens around puberty, and he remembers what it’s like to go through those years acutely aware of being different, in the ways he could hide and the ways he couldn’t.

“Little bit.” Scott runs a finger around the edge of his coffee cup. “What about you? The powers, and everything? Have you always, or--?

Matt shakes his head. “I got, um. Hit by a truck, when I was a kid. Chemical waste disposal company, hadn’t secured their cargo properly, and--” he gestures to his face. “ _Voila_. The whole package, except no one believed me about the heightened senses for _years_ , because who the hell can hear heartbeats half a block away? Everyone figured I was just exaggerating. Or it was some kind of PTSD or something, I don’t know.”

Scott laughs. “I used to get these headaches. Like, blacking out, couldn’t _talk_ for two days, bad. They asked if I was _having trouble in school_.”

Matt snorts.

“ _I know_ ,” says Scott. “Anyway, over the next couple years, they get worse and worse, and then one day I open my eyes, and _boom_ , half the orphanage is gone.”

Matt can’t help it--he bursts out laughing. After a moment, Scott joins him.

After the third cup, Scott says, a little regretfully, “I should really get back to Salem Center.”

Matt checks his watch--it’s almost three. “Yeah. Me, too. Office, I mean, although--”

“You should come down,” Scott tells him. “I mean, you will be anyway, obviously, but before then, check out the school.”

“Yeah,” says Matt. “Sounds good.” He’s not sure how to tell Scott how much it means, without making it weird: to meet someone who _gets it_. Even with Foggy, half the time he pretends he sprung into existence at eighteen, in the hall of a Columbia dorm. “And--thanks. For lunch. That was--I don’t get to have a lot of conversations like that.”

“No, yeah. Me, too.” There’s an edge to Scott that never quite goes away, even with an audible smile in his voice. Matt suspects he doesn’t have very many real friends, either. “We should do that again. I mean, if you want.”

“I’d like that,” Matt says. He thinks about the conversations he never has, the stories he’s learned to keep a lid on to avoid the exhausting, weird discord of other people’s shock. “I’d like that a lot.”


End file.
